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On the relevance of Gibson’s affordance concept for geographical information science (GISc)

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Abstract

J. J. Gibson’s concept of affordances has provided a theoretical basis for various studies in geographical information science (GISc). This paper sets out to explain its popularity from a GISc perspective. Based on a short review of previous work, it will be argued that its main contributions to GISc are twofold, including an action-centered view of spatial entities and the notion of agent–environment mutuality. Using the practical example of pedestrian behavior simulation, new potentials for using and extending affordances are discussed.

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Jonietz, D., Timpf, S. On the relevance of Gibson’s affordance concept for geographical information science (GISc). Cogn Process 16 (Suppl 1), 265–269 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-015-0719-4

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